Wikipedia (and its inaccuracies)

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Napoleon

2,500+ Posts
Earlier today I was reading about the Dixie Chicks. I then clicked on Martie Maguire's page (formerly "Martie Erwin" or "Martie Seidel"), I learned this interest "fact" about Lubbock, Texas. It is "nearby" Dallas. The Link
Having lived in Dallas for most of my life, I didn't realize that Lubbock was considered "nearby". In fact, according to Google Maps, it is 347 from Dallas to Lubbock. (In fact, Little Rock, AR is only 319 miles from Dallas and I wouldn't consider it "nearby" either.)

Then this evening I was reading about Brazilian soccer player "Kaká" (born "Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite") and I learned this interesting factoid.

In reply to:
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In the spirit of Wikipedia I edited your title (it's --> its).

Lubbock to Dallas is 298 miles as the crow flies. That's pretty nearby, I guess. It's only 12 miles farther than New York City to Richmond, Virginia.
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I once read that Reggie McNeal had to miss some games during his NFL rookie season b/c of injuries sustained to his vagina.
 
Are you really that attached to your punctuation error that you had to put it back in?

I feel a wiki war coming on.
 
I_Live_In_OK -

You are indeed correct. McNeal also sustained some severe injuries to his vagina when he played Texas a couple years back. The injuries to McNeal's vagina plagued his career.
 
Since Wikipedia is "open" or whatever people can add stuff but it is regulated. It no longer states that about Kaka. They will have messups but they are often fixed. I was reading about Columbine one day and at the end of a paragraph it said something like "Ms. Jones sucks". It was fixed. haha.
 
Napoleon, the Mod had already edited your thread title by removing the apostrophe.

The apostrophe isn't used for the possessive, only the contraction for "it is".

You basically re-edited to put it back in, (erroneously).

Hence the snarky "We're ******" comment.

Hope this helps.
 
About 3 months ago (wow, I hate the offseason!), a bunch of us from 'another site' started a "Wiki War" & began systematically editing the crap out of an aggy page. I think it was some alphabetical list of traditions & whatnot.

The 3 or 4 aggy dorks that maintainthe page couldn't keep up with allt he stuff we were doing (it was like 6 or 7 on our side & only 2 of them were available to get the notice of changes & trying to push back).

In the end, they left about 3 of the changes we had made because a few of our edits were just as factual as theirs... like how aggy claims more commissions into the US armed forces than any other school save the Service Academies BUT Virginia Tech states the same thing. aggy Had to leave that one alone because I had a citation to back it up whereas aggy did not.

Eventually we just gave up because it was a 1 or 2 day drive by harassment on our end & not really a planned takeover.

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I'm not a fan of Wikipedia vandalism, but there's nothing wrong with posting facts. It's an encyclopedia, that's what it's there for.

Although I wouldn't point out mistakes or conflicts like that Virginia Tech situation unless the page already contained a claim that A&M was #1 in that category. I'm sure it did, but just generally speaking.
 
They also have "bots" that will block some changes before they even make it on. One time I tried to add a fact -- that Vince Young is God -- and it never actually shows up and I get a message that a bot caught it.
 
I read a Wiki entry on Linda Vester who is a FOX tv talking head and married to Roger Godell who is the NFL commisioner.....the entry said the couple was 'estranged' and lived apart. A few weeks later I found the same entry and no mention of the 'estranged' comment. In fact, it looked like her PR person cleaned it up. Outside of historic, known facts , I'm cautious of anything I read on Wiki.

BL
 
I was arguing with a friend about some random thing or other, and he emailed me with a wikipedia entry supporting his case. So I just went onto wiki, changed it and cited the same page back at him. He had no idea you could do that.
 
In my experience most of the ****** up Wikipedia entries that people like to post and laugh at are direct links to the revision history, which is basically like a cached version of the page which may have existed for only a few minutes before it was corrected (but looks like a "real" Wikipedia page).

For example, see the last sentence under "High School Career" here:The Link

As you can see in the history, this version was only on Wikipedia for 39 minutes before it was reverted (notice I didn't say corrected
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) but as you can see, you can still link directly to it, and if you don't look closely it can easily be confused for the current version of the page.
 
Wikipedia, with it's faults, is the greatest source of information the world has ever known. For the amount of information that it has, it is extremely accurate.
 
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it is extremely accurate.
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if by extremely accurate you mean that you wouldn't bet your life on it w/out checking a creditable source, then yes, i agree with you. it has its uses, but to call it extremely accurate is a real long stretch.
 
I think it is a great site to collect some basic information about a wide range of topics. I hear that people are using it in citations though and I think that is retarded. Hitting the wiki isn't the same as an encyclopedia.... it is more like asking your know it all uncle jimbo who isn't afraid to make up the **** he doesn't know. More often than not it is accurate, but it isn't always obvious where and how it is wrong.
 
I love Wikipedia. Yesterday, I wanted to tell my wife about a city named Ostrava in the Czech Republic where I spent a summer in 1990. Wikipedia had a lot of information about things that have changed since the wall came down. Where else could I have easily found such info?
 
The problem is people tend to add true, but damaging or weak or inappropriate facts. Like "some people thought Reggie McNeal would be a better NFL passer than Vince Young because he could throw to the whole passing tree". That is a true fact, at least one moron thought that. But no legitimate encyclopedia puts every comment made by every jealous rival into history. Wiki allows it.
 
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